A collection of essays, speeches, stories, letters etc. Enjoyed the essays on writing and Vonnegut’s experiences with, and impressions of, his fellow writers most. Tried to read and ended up skipping over the Jekyll and Hyde bit. Overall, just okay.‬

Informative, but personal, and written by Vonnegut, so of course I liked it. I mean I think I'll read and like anything he has to say. I am glad that he put together collections of his work and letters and speeches and such, because not only do I like his novels but I also appreciated his comments about his own life and loved ones. Just as there are thoughtful and moving parts of his regular novels, he had some really great tid-bits about life in his auto-biography.
Oh, and I think I finally found something I might disagree with in Vonnegut's philosophy/thoughts or whatever. His opinion on people who follow religion is complicated and I'm not quite behind him all the way as I am on other things he believes in. I do like, however, that he acknowledges he is very atheist but still appreciates the historical figure of Jesus. I guess I've never thought about it that way.
Even though this was about him, he makes it about larger ideas about religion, relationships with friends and family, and the world.

Palm Sunday is a mediocre hodgepodge of previously unpublished, or underpublished, material by Kurt Vonnegut that has been forced into the shape of an autobiography. There are clever bits here and there, a few funny passages, and some interesting insights into what went on in Vonnegut's mind, but a lot of it seems second rate. The long excerpt from his family history at the beginning is extremely boring, and much of what remains had me thinking, "He has said this better elsewhere." If you love Vonnegut, if you are a Vonnegut completist, then by all means read this. It's not terrible, but his novels are better (at least the ones I've read).

Funny how when the real world is managing to produce events and stories that would be way beyond what the average writer would consider plausible (and frankly, some bits beyond sci-fi), a chance to head back to a wise voice talking about well, damn near anything. Which is exactly what this is - a compendium of essays, letters, interviews, and general musings from Vonnegut. It's great, and I always enjoy his non-fiction immensely. Some hit more than others, nearly all ramble, which is a huge part of the charm and topics cover family, events, writing, writers, anecdotes or whatever was in his head that particular day.

Vonnegut readers will be familiar with a lot of the content and stories (which he often drew on or repeated, particularly around his own family (and how he came to adopt his sister's two children again was black, stranger than fiction territory). Wise, moral, and engaging, this was very much teh right book at the right time.

One of his finest

A time-capsule of information about Vonnegut's life, as revealed by Vonnegut himself. This collage of speeches, essays, and biographical sketches covers a 20 year period (1959-79) that offers insights about the nature of the world during that time as well as Vonnegut's experience in it. Would recommend this autobiography for those who have read other Vonnegut works and are curious about his personal history. As the self-produced report card in this book indicates, Vonnegut only gave himself a C+ on this work, but I'd give it a solid B.

Fine. Largely forgettable. It seems to be a collection of stuff he never published elsewhere. He talks about the breakdown of his first marriage as much as a man who doesn't really want to talk about it might. He talks about his son's mental health problems, but you can also find that elsewhere. Probably the most fascinating piece is a sermon he gave at an Episcopal Church on Palm Sunday. I don't read Vonnegut to learn things about the Bible, but here I did. Go figure. Truth is stranger than fiction. Now that I think about it, another good bit talks about how hard it is to learn to read. We spend years learning to read, he points out, and some people never master it enough to read for enjoyment.

I asked a friend what she thought of Palm Sunday and she said Vonnegut wrote some books merely to put food on the table. Vonnegut all but admits that here, describing himself as a kind of working-stiff and rating this book a C as compared to his other work.

Palm Sunday is a true collage, a collection of speeches, musings, and family history, with a short story, play, and interview thrown in. What comes through is his lack of pretension and a warmth and wisdom that could only come from his particular wartime experiences and his unexpected ability to find success as a writer. Yet, he mentions those who hold him in contempt or the family members who don't even read him. He is not kidding when he says he is a terrible playwright. What I found most endearing was that he refuses to be cruel. His attacks on William F. Buckley are as urbane as Buckley, and he gives Jack Kerouac the benefit of doubt despite his tirades and threat to beat up his son. It is unsurprising that he was an advocate for free speech; only those with a broad mind could be so.

Of the many insights, I was most touched by his observation that we crave tribes and extended families, and in the absence of these we try to make our relationships into more. They fall under the weight of the pressure, and marriage ends with "I'm sorry. You, being human need a hundred affectionate and like-minded companions. I'm only one person. I've tried, but I could never be a hundred people to you. You've tried, but could never be a hundred people to me." (206-207)

I give book an A-. It is sloppy and likely meant to put food on the table, but both were part of Vonnegut's particular charm.

Palm Sunday is an interesting type of book. According to Wikipedia, it's a "collection of short stories, speeches, essays, letters, and other previously unpublished works," all by Vonnegut himself.

If you're a fan of Vonnegut's other works, I would definitely recommend giving this a read. My personal favorite chapter was the one titled "Self-Interview," described as "Replies by KV to questions put by himself for The Paris Review No. 69."

I've given this four stars only because not all the writings included are as good as the others, but I'd still definitely recommend this if you've enjoyed Vonnegut's other works, since it's always nice to hear something in his characteristic style.

Reading this book convinced me that I didn't like Vonnegut's work.

A weird little collection, about 50% of which is very good, and tender, and provoking, and the other adjectives one would associate with KV. And an other 50% that's like when you're trying to get an essay in high school to the required minimum word limit.

I appreciate the attempt to make the book feel like a larger whole, mostly through the cartilage of Vonnegut's commentary about what's about to come, with section headers like Self-Interview followed by The People One Knows followed by Playmates (you can see some level of A goes to B goes to C, but it's also not totally, obviously straightforward... it's A. Weird. Little. Collection.)

As others have said (I think), Palm Sunday is quite readable, especially for a Vonnegut completist, but don't expect his best work through-and-through.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention -- Vonnegut knows this. On pages 311-312, he gives (a number of) the books he's written a letter grade. He gives Palm Sunday a C. Truth in advertising.

Other observations:
My mild whining above aside, it's kind of nice to hear what Vonnegut thinks about himself.

So humanist. Made me remember that for a brief (young and maybe dumb) period I'd answer the "what religion are you?" question with "humanist" like a twerp.

All of the book banning and book burning opener is still so unfortunately relevant in 2022.

Vonnegut's five pages on literary style are so good that they more than make up for the 20 pages of random rambling that come before them.

At one point there are 3+ pages of people's names.

Quotes I liked:
"My books so far have argued that most human behavior, no matter how ghastly or ludicrous or glorious or whatever, is innocent." Pg xviii

First sentence of the body of the body of the texy making me sad: "I am a member member of what I believe to be the last recognizable generation of full-time, life-time American novelists." Pg 1

"I would add that novelists are not only unusually depressed, by and large, but have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale's department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time." Pg 128

"We know now that she was only pretending to be strong -- which is the best any of us can do." Pg 150 / Eulogy for Lavina

There are certainly more, and even better ones, but I was far away from my notebook while reading the second half of the book. The graphs of plot in relation to culture from KV's rejected master's thesis, and the entirety of the Palm Sunday Sermon, are must-reads as I recall. I'm going to go re-read them, right now.

I prefer to alternate back and forth between fiction and non-fiction in order to maintain my interest in reading and so that I do not get burned out on one genre or another.

Having just read a clinical psychology text, I was craving some existential bittersweet human-condition material and figured it had been awhile since I read such a Vonnegut story. So without really glancing at the cover I picked Palm Sunday off of my shelf.

Oops! This one's an auto-biography. Well, sort of.

Mr. Vonnegut describes this book as a "blevit", his description of a genre that is neither fiction nor non-fiction but is both at the same time, kind of.

I'd still mainly put it in the non-fiction camp. He explains in detail his ancestry, his parents, his life as a young child in Indianapolis, his time spent during the firebombing of Dresden during World War II (which he sort of re-told in a strange sci-fi time travel narrative in his novel Slaughterhouse Five), his children and adopted children, and his more recent life in Cape Cod and New York. You understand from all this why he wrote the way he did.

There's also some interviews and speeches he had given... and some some he never gave, but relates any way what he would have said had he been given the opportunity.

There's also his short stage adaptation of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" that feels like his book Slapstick in that it is something you want to find hilarious because of how absurd it is (Mr. Hyde is a giant human chicken?) but it just doesn't quite work.

Oh, and there's the inclusion of his short story "The Big Space Fuck", the story which he describes as the most vulgar thing he's ever written. Basically, a rocket full of a select few's sperm is being launched to the Andromeda galaxy to "fuck it". As someone now working in the space industry I suppose I could say I appreciated this story a little more than I would have otherwise.

Perhaps the neatest things in the book were how he shows the shapes of stories on graph paper (which you can get the gist of here), and his personal report card reviewing his previous novels. He gave my personal favorite novel of his Mother Night an 'A', and my least favorite (so far) Slapstick a 'D', and this book itself a 'C', which I suppose I could agree with.

I did love this quote though:
"If a lover in a story wins his true love, that’s the end of the tale, even if World War III is about to begin, and the sky is black with flying saucers."